KABUL—The campaign for Saturday's presidential election in Afghanistan is featuring women in a more prominent role than ever before. One front-runner has a female running mate, and another has let his wife address campaign rallies—major departures from established practice in a conservative, Islamic country where women have long been kept out of politics.

Activists say the relative prominence of women in the election campaign underlines the progress Afghan women have made since the U.S. ousted the Taliban regime in 2001.

Afghan girls sang during an election rally for vice presidential candidate Habiba Sarabi in Kabul. Since the fall of the Taliban in 2001, women have benefited from access to education and employment. Paula Bronstein for The Wall Street Journal

"Women can no longer be ignored," said
Wazhma Frogh,
a women's rights advocate in Kabul. "Women now bring a lot of votes."

Under the Taliban, Afghan women were barred from work, let alone political office. Even the spouse of current President
Hamid Karzai
has never appeared alongside him in public.

The stakes of Saturday's vote are high for women: The new government will be responsible for upholding their hard-won gains as U.S.-led coalition forces leave and the world spotlight turns away from Afghanistan.

Since the fall of the Taliban in 2001, women have benefited from access to education and employment. To encourage their political participation, Afghan laws reserved quotas of seats for women in the national parliament and in provincial councils. Women cast around 40% of the vote in both the 2004 and 2009 presidential elections.

Now, many worry that women's rights will be sacrificed as part of a possible peace deal with the Taliban insurgency—a priority for all three major presidential candidates. Conservative lawmakers have threatened to curtail legal protections for women and recently lowered the quota of seats reserved for women in provincial councils to 20% from 25%.

"The past 12 years were the golden era and we don't want to lose that," said lawmaker
Shukria Barakzai.

All three main contenders—former Finance Minister
Ashraf Ghani
and former foreign ministers
Zalmai Rassoul
and
Abdullah Abdullah
—have vowed to support women's rights if elected.

Mr. Rassoul,
who is unmarried, has named a woman as his running mate:
Habiba Sarabi,
a former governor of the predominantly ethnic Hazara central province of Bamiyan. She has been campaigning with Mr. Rassoul across the country, including in conservative, ethnic Pashtun-majority areas where women turnout has been especially low in past elections.Ms. Sarabi says she hopes her place in the presidential ticket will encourage more women to go to the polls."I'm trying my best to get women's votes," Ms. Sarabi said in a recent interview. If elected, she said she wants women to make up at least 20% of the cabinet.

In a bid to court women, Another candidate, Mr. Ghani, appeared at a campaign event for International Women's Day with his Lebanese-born wife, Rula, who delivered a speech.

"This is the first time that candidates are really placing attention on women's participation and bringing their wives," "We never saw this before in past elections,"said
Najla Ayubi,
a Kabul-based researcher with the Asia Foundation. who served as a judge in pre-Taliban times.

Despite this apparent progress,
Mohammad Naeem Ayubzada,
the head of the Kabul-based Transparent Election Foundation of Afghanistan, said that women remain marginal in Afghan politics.

"They are not real actors in the political process," said Mr. Ayubzada. "In the provinces women can't even go to the bazaar without their husbands' permission. Then how we can expect them to take part in politics?"

Some 300 women will be among the 2,700 candidates contesting seats in provincial councils on Saturday.In the run-up to the vote, they have received more threats from insurgents or local power brokers than in previous elections, activists say. One of them,
Zakia Wardak,
said she has met with resistance from older men in rural Wardak province. "They say 'We don't want women in government.' They have this mentality that women are meant to stay at home and work in the house," said Ms. Wardak, who comes from an influential political family and lives in Kabul."Men are the main obstacle," she said. "It is a male-dominated country, and it is very difficult for them to see a woman in power."

I hope the women have achieved some rights and freedom but doubt it will survive the next Taliban purge. The shooting of a school girl on a bus and no condemnation by the muslim world reinforces that opinion.

So, liberals, please preach more to us about this Republican party war on women.

I am happy to see more positive outcomes. The Taliban had a chance to MYOB and conduct their misogynist ways in peace. But then they had to start flying planes into civilian buildings. Karma happens, and Afghan women win.

Thank you, GWB, for setting us *all* free of the Taliban. The right outcome happened.

Thank you, US troops, for serving both our country and all women. We are forever indebted to you.

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